


Don't Call Me (I'll Call You)

by TheMorningAche



Category: Marvel
Genre: Rhodey Understands Him Anyway, Tony Stark Can't Do That Thing Called Honesty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-12
Updated: 2012-12-12
Packaged: 2017-11-20 22:36:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/590412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMorningAche/pseuds/TheMorningAche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The Academy! You know, that big, future-changing school where strapping young males learn to serve their country and pilot huge planes? Where you should be, oh, now?”</p>
<p>Tony hums. “’Strapping young males’? Is that what we are? I could get used to that.”</p>
<p>(Or the one where Tony is an awesome conversationalist, a terrible everything else, and Rhodey deals with it anyway.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Call Me (I'll Call You)

**Author's Note:**

> This was started seconds after watching Iron Man, but left to gather dust under the weight of feels produced by Avengers the past year. Revisited it, finished it, and lo, my first Marvel fic. Accomplishment!

“Where are you, man?” the voice over his phone asks, distorted in a way that can’t be just because of the poor reception and how tightly his hand is pressing the mobile to his ear.

“At the Academy, Tony,” James says darkly, switching the phone to the other ear when this weird smacking sound breaks through the background static. “Are you- are you eating?”

“Yeah,” Tony replies easily, pausing to presumably swallow. “Angelo’s pizza. S’really good. Where’d you say you are again?”

“The Academy! You know, that big, future-changing school where strapping young males learn to serve their country and pilot huge planes? Where you should be, oh, _now_?”

Tony hums. “’Strapping young males’? Is that what we are? I could get used to that.”

“There’s one problem with that, Tony: you aren’t actually one of those young males on the track towards success. If anything, I’d say you’re heading down a path riddled in heart disease and lonely Saturday nights with Angelo and his sweaty upper lip.”

“I’ve only had about six quarters of a pizza,” Tony mumbles, words garbled again as he shoves more food in his mouth. “Make that seven.”

“That’s nearly two pizzas.”

“Yeah? Well- oh, hold on a second. Nah, Angelo, it’s Rhodey. Huh? I’ll ask. Hey, Rhodey, you coming over? Angelo says he’ll get a Hawaiian put together quick if you do. I also need someone to pay my tab.”

“You have a tab at a pizza parlor?” James questions, flatly, like he doesn’t know why he’s still surprised.

“Y’know how it is.”

“I really don’t. Why is the infamous playboy Tony Stark even shirking his responsibilities at a dump like that anyway?”

“Hey! Careful! Angelo’s sitting right here, and despite his massive, ham-resembling arms and low IQ, he’s quite sensitive. This place is his pride and joy.” There’s a quiet static and James can hear Tony’s voice, soft and not aimed at him, before it returns. “Besides, I can’t exactly go to the kinds of places I normally like after I was chastised by a certain guy on a holy mission to force me to let go of my wild side, perhaps learn to fly a plane.”

“If you didn’t want to fly a plane, why did you join the Air Force Academy?”

“Because you’re there! I thought you understood this. I was pretty sure it was made clear when I signed up only after you mentioned that you’d be, like, 800 freaking miles in the middle of nowhere without a dose of Tony Stark for weeks. I did it for you. For us, really, because heaven knows I’d probably annoying Pepper out of a friendship without my own little Jiminy Cricket chirping at me that everything can’t be fixed with shoes.”

“You said you liked planes.”

“Did I say that? I meant stewardesses. Though, yeah, that’s not the only view I like, I guess. I just always feel like I could closer to it. Be outside the window instead of in the pocket of some sweaty guy who absolutely doesn’t have enough net worth to afford a first class ticket next to Tony Stark.”

“You think maybe you’d be closer to the skies if you _learned to fly an aircraft_? Crazy suggestion, I know.”

“Unprecedented.”

There’s a long silence, during which James rubs uselessly at that spot behind the ears where all his Tony-instigated headaches seem to settle. He can hear the other man sucking his teeth, can picture him sitting on one of the overstuffed stool cushions at the pizza parlors, shoulders hunched in and knocking his knee against the underside of the counter every fourth spin, fingers tapping out sequences and equations too complicated for him to be as young as he looks. It’s possible James knows Tony too well.

“So what are you wearing?” asks the slacker, voice dropping to a low register.

“Tony-“

“Shh, baby, not so loud. We’ll get to that in a moment. For now, daddy needs you to find someplace quiet and wait for further instructions.”

James huffs and remains resolutely cemented to the stretch of training grounds he’s commandeering with drills finished for the day.

“Anthony-”

“Fine, fine! I’ll just find someone else to have an epic bromance with.”

“Friends do not require friends to have phone sex with them at the cost of said friendship."

Static fills the open line. And then Tony _titters_.

“What?”

“You said ‘phone sex’. Rhodey! I didn’t know they taught strapping young males such garishness. My delicate sensibilities might be offended. Where can I file a complaint? ‘I was accosted by-‘”

“Tony, what are you doing with your life?” James cuts Tony’s tangent off with practiced ease.

Quiet hums in his ear, a tangible presence joyriding sound waves and veering recklessly through medians, leaving everything abuzz in its wake. Tony’s only ever been honestly hurt a few times in his life. James has always been conscious of avoiding those desperately shielded soft spots. It’s too easy to picture Tony in a deserted pizza place, sight aimed somewhere no one can touch, and kind of magnificent and lost in equal amounts to anyone that sees him. It hurts more than it should.

“I’m not,” he sighs, “I’m not disappointed, Tony. You’re brilliant; you know you are. I was just wondering why you’re wasting your time when you could be doing so much more.”

And it’s true. Tony, for not showing much interest or even showing up frequently, has everyone at the Academy riveted. The students respect him because they think he’ll either be the next captain or designing their equipment someday. The instructors all want a chance to plant a flag on that massive mound of smart Tony has for a brain. Clients contracting with big name military companies have offered him a lot of money to come work for them – with or without further education.

And that’s all discounting the esteem he already has carrying around a name like ‘Stark’.

The billionaire hums noncommittally. “Did I tell you I came up with an idea for a suit? One that can fly and fight crime and grocery shop when you get a craving for prosciutto – though early diagnostics show there might be some frosting issues, what with the high velocity and atmosphere and everything. Though prosciutto thaws nicely. Better than turkey anyway.”

James lets Tony’s babble wash over him like the moment when the rumbling of a plane stops, your stomach sinks, and then you’re off the ground and gaining altitude. It’s a bit dizzying, a modicum of crazy, and paradoxically relaxing and exhilarating.

This won’t be the last time Tony tries to escape serious conversation with distractions. It’s not the last time James will let him get away with it either. But that’s probably because, for the same reasons he joined the Academy, he wants to see the same heights Tony does when he floats away.


End file.
